Theme Thursday: Zeam Launcher

A sad but inevitable aspect of life with a smartphone is the day that phone starts to lag behind and goes from a state of the art speed demon to a plodding grandfather. The use of custom launchers can really take their toll on older phones as they are constantly becoming more complex and adding features that use increasingly more and more memory. Sometimes in order to find a simple solution is to take a step back from the more familiar launchers and try a less-familar one that values being lightweight over being crammed full of features. After cruising around the Play store I stumbled across a highly rated but little known launcher named Zeam.

I will preface the rest of this review by saying that anyone looking for a launcher to be a straight replacement for popular, full-featured launcher like GO Launcher EX or ADWLauncher. Zeam Launcher is specifically designed for people who want a fast and efficient experience and not for those who want the frankly unnecessary bells and whistles that tend to bog down other launchers. Call it minimalistic or bare bones, but the bottom line is that Zeam Launcher is the fastest launcher that I have ever tested on my phone. Every touch is registered immediately and I might even say that Zeam is more responsive and snappier than HTC’s stock Sense UI.

That being said, the customization options are very, very thin. Even though I know Zeam is aiming to be that way, there are still very few options for even some of the most basic options. A bulk of the options are centered around the number of panels and the way they are oriented and interract. Beyond editing the number of rows and collums there are not many more options when it comes to how the icons look or behave; as there is no option to edit icons for applications.

Even with the negatives, Zeam Launcher is definitely something that anyone cursed with an aging smartphone should look into. There are just enough customization options here to make it worth the very conveinient increase in performance.

Joseph Bertolini

Joseph is an Mechanical Engineering student at The Ohio State University as well as an amateur photographer.